I’m seeing footage of many Russian copters. Anyone believe the Ukrainians are dropping copters and/or destroying tanks? Or is this thing over?
Dead Russian on the road.
https://twitter.com/phildstewart/status/1496995673291599884?cxt=HHwWmMC9jcXossYpAAAA
The Russians on the other hand, believe in numbers and shock in their attacks. They have been willing to take initial losses to win a battle of attrition.
I think when the true numbers come out, people will be stunned at the loss of life on both sides. A simple fact though is, there are more Russians than Ukrainians.
That is a lesson we need to learn quickly when in a potential conflict we will pit 55 F-22s against the Russian air force and expect air superiority. The true heroes in that struggle will be the F-16s...by sheer numbers.
“Anyone believe the Ukrainians are dropping copters and/or destroying tanks?”
The story reports that 3 Russian tanks were destroyed near the border around Kharkiv, using NLAWs. The UK recently provided the Ukraine 2,000 of those man-portable, shoulder fired anti-tank missiles.
The USA provided also recently some number (at least 300) of the similar Javelin anti-tank missiles, as well as some number similarly employed Stinger anti-aircraft missiles. Poland and Baltic Countries were also reported to have recently transferred some additional number of similar weapons. The Ukraine previously had its own stockpile of these types of weapons, prior to these recent arms transfers.
It is hard to miss with those self-guided missiles. Something like a 95% probability of kill, even with inexperienced operators, with only a few minutes of training and an instruction card.
I expect heavy attrition of Russian high value combat platforms like tanks and helicopters. Stinger missiles in Afghanistan are sometimes discussed as the reason the Russians had to withdraw from there.
It’s the second night, and they will need to park their tanks and sleep, as they will every night from now on. A single guy can creep (or drive) up to within one mile of a tank (or stick his head up from his hole, or even fire it out the window of a building), and kill that tank in a matter of less than a minute.
The Russian Military is going to bleed.
They’re likely getting at least a few of each. Their chopper armor is proof against most MANPADS but sufficiently fast/agile ATGMs can still hit choppers.